The Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit (SVRSU) board approved filling eight central office positions in the new unit, which is to take effect July 1. Other positions, however, must wait.
Interim Supt. Martha Witham provided a hiring plan at the March 19 regular board meeting that included curriculum coordinator, food service, transportation/maintenance, and special education director, among others. The board did not approve filling these positions.
Several board directors questioned why the central office chart showed so many employees in addition to the posts of superintendent, assistant superintendent, finance manager, etc.
Richard DeVries of Westport Island, targeting four secretarial positions, found the chart “over inflated” and Shawn Carlson, of Wiscasset, said school consolidation was “sold to our towns on the idea that the central office staff is where we’d save money, and we aren’t.”
Witham said including the additional positions was intended to give the central office committee, which is searching for a building, “an idea of the space needed.” She said not all the posts fall under central office costs. Transportation, food service and curriculum coordinator, for example, will have other “cost centers.”
The hiring plan includes two assistant special education directors. Witham said state education leaders support the number because the assistants must attend pupil evaluation team (PET) meetings.
There are 300 such meetings a year in Union 132, according to Supt. Frank Boynton, who said, “Our special ed. students attend more than 20 high schools.” About one-third of secondary students are special education and in a routine year there could be several meetings per pupil, Boynton said.
SVRSU towns are Wiscasset, Westport Island, Alna, Whitefield, Chelsea, Windsor, Somerville and Palermo. The last five are currently in Unions 132 and 133.
Witham said the new RSU might not need so many secretaries but that it would be unfortunate “to lose any of the people you have. You have valuable people with great knowledge.”
Savings can eventually be expected because there will be one food service director, not eight, and one transportation head, as Blake Brown, of Palermo, said.
Gene Stover, of Wiscasset, pointed to further savings with one superintendent in charge. “You have three now.”
Witham noted that if Wiscasset Supt. Jay McIntire or Union 133 Supt. Greg Potter is not hired, “you still have to hold positions open for them. This chart does that. You’re not saving money the first year because you have to honor those contracts and your first year is an organizational year. Your teacher and support staff contracts have to be honored.”
She said eventually the two positions of curriculum coordinator and assistant superintendent will be one. “By year three, you should certainly see savings,” Witham said.
Witham is eager to finalize central office hiring because, she said after the meeting, “My job is to get a budget and pay people by July 1. I need central office people to do that.” Furthermore, she is reluctant to lose employees who might seek jobs elsewhere if decisions aren’t made in a timely fashion.
Application deadline for the superintendent’s job was March 20. Whether Witham or the new hire gets to fill other posts “depends on how long the process goes on,” she said. Her role is to fill the central office posts and then return to the board for approval to fill the rest.
The board held a 90-minute closed-door session for a presentation by attorney S. Campbell Badger of Drummond Woodsum law firm regarding the negotiations process in a new RSU, and for a personnel matter.
The next full board meeting will be Thurs., April 2, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the Whitefield School gym.
